Rectify Recap: Season 4, Episode 2: Yolk (And Other Metaphors)

This Rectify recap for episode 2 relives the same day as the premiere, but this week we’re back in Paulie catching up with the Talbot/Holden Clan.

It’s hard to write a Rectify recap without talking about the metaphors. Hidden in the quiet, throwaway moments, there are so many things we can read as complex symbols. The constant parallels between Daniel’s day and his family’s, the broken eggs, all the talk about money and work…. It’s plain to see that Rectify is asking us to compare the two, even if

As we relive the same day as we did in the premiere– a clever narrative device that reveals

Episode 2 uses a clever narrative device that reveals the larger metaphors at play.

the larger metaphors at play -there are parallels that force us to compare Daniel’s life to that of his family.

Janet wakes up much like Daniel does in the premiere. She lies in bed, stares at the ceiling, and is presumably reluctant to get up. Both Daniel and his mother have unwanted houseguests. Daniel must contend with his roommate, Jesse, while Janet tiptoes around Teddy, Jr, who now lives in the attic.

Amantha and Daniel both seem stooped, trying to to fit into something that is far too small.

Just like Daniel has to manage the routine of his job and it’s interpersonal nightmares, so does Amantha as the new manager at Thrifty Town. Although Amantha is the boss, there’s still something bleak about both of their jobs.

Tawny and Teddy are in this gray area of separated but still married, and it seems like Teddy is coming away far more self-aware and whole. Unlike Daniel, who struggles to connect his inner self with those around him, Teddy has found a way to get completely outside of his own head. I guess moving back in with your parents, paying the mortgage on a house you don’t live in, and seeing your wife only once a week will do that to you.

It’s often those with the most practice at being who they are that have the hardest time changing course.

It’s weird to say that Teddy’s growth is outpacing Daniel’s but it seems likely that Teddy might be a better example of a man gaining insight than Daniel. To be fair, Teddy has had a lot more experience with people than Daniel has.

Teddy acknowledges this about Daniel, saying that starting over is hard, but he quickly corrects himself saying that Daniel is merely, “starting, in his case.” This small moment of empathy illustrates an enormous stride in Teddy’s growth.

Janet, on the other hand, is struggling to move forward. The course of the first three seasons

Photo: SundanceTV/Rectify

of Rectify transpired over just a few weeks, and Janet feels cheated out of her chance to have her son back. Prison stole 19 years from her, and he was only back for an embattled handful of weeks before he’s banished to another town. She tells Ted she has to go see him, “to make sure he’s real.”

Her sense of being robbed is only stoked by the release of Trey Willis. He’s out on bond (for the murder of George Milton) and Janet is bitter about Trey’s luck. She tries to talk to Amantha about it, but Amantha has become so jaded and abrasive, she has little very little pleasant left in her. She musters a weak, “good for him,” when Janet tells her about Trey, but it’s obvious Amantha has grown weary of looking after Daniel.

Janet finds an outlet, albeit a really minor and harmless outlet, for her frustrations when she sees Trey in the supermarket. Breaking all the eggs in his carton is a nice symmetry to the earlier scene where her eggs are broken in her ‘fridge.

The broken yolks in both scenes illustrate the fragility of life and unrealized potential – constant themes in the Rectify universe.

Using the same day, but different settings, is a handy tool for us to measure their lives side by side, and comparisons make for interesting conclusions about what we know about the family. But doing so also distracts from their contribution to the bigger picture.

The parallel days also offer a window in the “old days” before Daniel came home and disrupted the new normal they established. Ted Sr. makes flapjacks and Teddy and Amantha perform like the traditional picture of two siblings. This scene reveals a heartbreaking realization – Daniel would never know this family or be a part of what they created. He’s isolated from his family in Nashville, quite like he was isolated all those years in prison.

Amantha isolates herself on purpose, pushing people away with her acidic personality and her default sarcasm. She’s rude to her old friend, Billy Harris, after her car accident, even after he offers to wait with her on the road. I don’t know how Amantha resists a man that begins sentences with, “this might be small town of me, but…” because I know I sure couldn’t.

I’m happy Janet is going to see Daniel. We need a break in the tension, and if Amantha doesn’t get to second base with the hunky good Samaritan, Billy Harris, at least we can see Daniel hug his mother’s neck.

Rectify airs on SundanceTV Wednesdays at 10/9c

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